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The desert called so we pulled out the long boats and headed down the Baja way, first loading enough boats to take full advantage of both coasts, then cramming the truck full of every camping comfort it would take, right down to a hand-cranked margarita blender.

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Sean Morley knows a few things about going fast. He honed his forward stroke technique as a flatwater sprint racer on the British junior national team, but has made his biggest mark traveling far and fast in challenging conditions. He’s held speed records for crossing the Irish Sea, circumnavigating Vancouver Island, and paddling 4,500 miles around Great Britain and Ireland, solo.

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The Jondachi is special. Ask any Tena paddler what their favorite run is, where they cut their teeth, where they go with their friends, where they suggest recently arrived foreign kayakers go: the Upper Jondachi. Kayaking is young in Ecuador. Truly, it’s in its infancy. To lose the Jondachi to a dam would be to lose a great teacher.

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“Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks offer some of the best paddling opportunities in the world for all abilities -- to live so near to these amazing rivers and yet be unable to experience them is a constant frustration for me and many other residents and visitors.”

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Last year, our readers were so impressed by the Trans-Territorial Canoe Expedition–a four-month, 2,600-mile canoe journey across Canada’s Northern Territories–that they voted it the Expedition of the Year at the 2013 C&K Awards. But for expedition-member Winchell Delano, crossing Canada’s far north from the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson Bay wasn’t enough. He is planning to go even bigger in 2015. Starting in January, Delano and five other paddlers (John Keaveny, Dan Flynn, Jarrad Moore, Adam Trigg, and Luke Kimmes) will canoe from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean over a period of nine months and cover a distance of approximately 5,200 miles. We caught up with Delano to get the details of the Rediscover North America expedition. C&K: Just the map of your expedition route is mind-boggling. Where did this idea come from? Winchell Delano: Part of your Expedition of the Year award included a $2,500 grant towards a future expedition. That is probably where everything started; that is, the incentive to plan something. Once the drive to plan the trip was in place, our goal was to try and surpass the previous undertaking in both distance and duration. In order to do so, we decided to orient

Lapping the Island

Canadian sea kayaker Joe O’Blenis pulls no punches when asked why he’s planning to endure over two weeks of 40- to 45-mile-long paddling days around British Columbia’s Vancouver Island this summer: It’s to reclaim a speed record he set in 2007 by lapping the island’s 750-mile perimeter in 23 days. Barely a year later, British superpaddler Sean Morley eclipsed the Canadian’s record by nearly six days. “I wouldn’t be going if I didn’t think I had a shot at the record,” says the native of Thunder Bay, Ontario. “It’s that stupid competitive spirit in me.”

O’Blenis, 44, has an impressive list of long-haul paddling accomplishments to his credit, including a single season, 3,750-mile cross-Canada canoe trip in 2004 and completing the 460-mile-long Yukon River Quest marathon race. In 2003, he paddled 170 miles in an attempt to set a new world record for distance paddled in 24 hours. He’s planning to depart the city of Nanaimo or Comox on Vancouver Island’s east coast (part of the Inside Passage) in mid-June to take advantage of the longest daylight hours of the year.

This will be O’Blenis’ third attempt to capture the Vancouver Island speed record. His first attempt fell short due to an equipment malfunction that forced him to limp back to civilization with improvised hatch covers. Re-equipped, he set out again and suffered through 18 days of headwinds to complete the trip in 23 days, beating the previous record of 28 days, held by American Leon Somme. “Sometimes I was paddling at a marathon pace but barely doing [one mile per hour],” says O’Blenis. “You wear yourself to nothing doing that.”

Vancouver Island has become a proving ground for speed-oriented paddlers. The route is challenging—it’s east side is a labyrinth of islands and tidal races, it’s west coast exposed to Pacific Ocean swell and surf, and much of the coastline is undeveloped wilderness. Tandem speed record holders Keirron Tastagh of Great Britain and Jeff Norville of Portland, Oregon damaged their boat on a surf landing on their 19-day trip in 2007 and had to construct an improvised skeg; and Morley spent hours paddling in massive swell, unable to go ashore due to surf.

Last time he did it, O’Blenis says the toughest part was resisting the temptation to relax and enjoy the scenery. “I walked the beaches and only once did I get on the water before six AM,” he says. “To be successful this time I’ll have to get on the water between five and six in the morning. I know I’m going to suffer, but it’s the perfect place to do it.” –Conor Mihell